


Something Human

by Fratilla



Series: The Great Writer of Tisso [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: Angst, Drag Queen, F/M, Footnotes, Fourth Wall Breaking, M/M, Multi, Prostitution, The siege of Landis, omniscent narrator, sarcastic narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 16
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fratilla/pseuds/Fratilla
Summary: The story follows both Balthier’s quest from his troubled teenage years to finding his own way, and the travels of a lonely woman ranger from Archades, Petra. Despite her trying her very best to focus on wildlife conservation, little to none emotional insight and perhaps casual sex, Petra finds her path constantly crossed by Archadia and her war, not to mention an unrequited love she’s been a victim of since Landis. As the ranger struggles to remain neutral and untouched and Archadia (and Vayne) looms over the heroes of this story, Balthier finds it increasingly hard to keep his past AND Basch out of his head.
Relationships: Balthier/Basch fon Ronsenburg, Drace/Gabranth | Noah fon Ronsenburg, Gabranth/New character/Drace, Grabranth/New character, Vayne/new character
Series: The Great Writer of Tisso [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866376
Kudos: 3





	1. Wistful - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> It’s probably pointless to point this out, since you surely noticed already, but English is not my mothertongue. I love it VERY much and I actually had the greatest of times trying to impersonate a pompous, sarcastic narrator who’s overly full of himself, but well... I don’t expect my phrasing to be perfect and I suspect some of it turned out quite heavy. Feel free to point anything odd out, as perfecting my English is very important to me. I hope you enjoy this little creature of mine!

The Bombs stormed Archades on a very busy day.

It was 9:00 in the morning. 

The first to notice that something was off was a florist on the Tsenoble level. He was carefully arranging a casket flower garland, paying very close attention not to accidentally suggest, in the flower language, that the late sir Engilbert had been a despotic pater familias or had been particularly keen on the merry unorthodox entrepreneur ladies of the level below, or that anyone was particularly glad he had departed from this world(1). The florist looked at the horizon and far away, beyond the wretched ruins of the old town, he saw some round masses levitating in the air. He was just about to call the City Council Office for Dalmascan Terrorism Alert, when the alarm was sounded. 

At a secondary military air base, which was only used for noblemen and members of the court (2), Judge Magister Gabranth was struggling to untangle a hard knot of mixed feelings while trying on the Dalmascan armor, mentally practicing his lines for a theatrical play in Nalbina which was unbecoming at best. He was trying to decide whether to revel in the sweetest torpor of revenge or succumb to the sinking feeling that his life had irreparably gone down the drain; then he heard the alarm. 

The people on the streets had selected their outfits and their language and demeanor according to the level in which the dwelled. But, upon realizing what was about to happen, democracy was restored and everybody had the exact same reaction: running chaotically to the assembly point, trampling on small children, elderly citizen and people with impaired mobility. 

FOOTNOTES:

(1) All of this was actually the truth, but flowers are seldom used to speak the truth.

(2) Especially when they needed to elope to Balfonheim with the head housemaid, run away from their father who was driven mad by his continued interaction with a rogue deity or otherwise travel to important cities to scheme and plot and overthrow small republics.


	2. Wistful - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bomb pod (actually, it’s called a nuke!) keeps on attacking the city of Archades.

The Bombs were positively a lot. There had to be at least forty-five of them. The military were many more than them, but nobody was particularly inclined to shoot arrows at them and risk the whole Post Office Palace (3). 

Judge Magisters Gabranth and Bergan were discussing a plan from atop Watchtower 4. Bergan was determined to capture the Bombs with magickal nets and keep them securely in store to be used later as weapons; Gabranth was a little skeptical as to how securely the lot of them could be stored (4).

But the Bombs were on the move, and two minutes later the whole city center was engulfed in a slimy coat of black oil, which the creatures had spat all over the place. 

Oil was dripping down from the Zenoble level onto the lowest part of the city, which was starting to look like a frying pan full of dark slime and human sautèe. There was oil everywhere, from the rooftops to the beard of the Ministry Councilman of Foreign Affairs, and it was perfectly clear that a single fire spell from just one Bomb would have started a fire to envelop the capital city for many hours. 

FOOTNOTES

(3) It was particularly important because it hosted the only post-office in the world not run by those shifty Moogles. Plus, it had such tasteful stuccos that nobody was keen on letting it go, especially now that many people were saying that Rabanastre looked much more beguiling than Archades. It also hosted the Museum of Communications and Transportations, which was the reason why so many middle school students would have gladly seen a Bomb blow it all to Kingdom come… but Emperor Gramis was an elderly emperor, and everybody knows that elderly people enjoy boring municipal museums.

(4) But then, there had to be a reason why he was known as Mr. Brightside in the soldiers’ barracks.


	3. Wistful - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A red-haired warrior holding a spear comes to rescue Archades.

A whistle was heard, like it was calling for the beginning of an attack. 

Immediately afterwards, a Bomb the size of a small air vehicle rushed towards a group of civilians which had foolishly thought they would have been safe in the assembly area. 

Before anyone could do anything, a green flash of lightning crossed the air. Something hit the Bomb so fast that the contraption was flung across the skies towards a second Bomb up above, and the two exploded together far away from the civilians, but not from the Post Office Palace, which lost a pillar which was particularly dear to the town Mayor. 

People screamed as they saw sparks falling down from the explosion, about to ignite the oil down below. It was at this point that it became clear that the lightning was, in fact, a human being. The warrior with no uniform swiped the air with a spear and the sparks were turned into small rocks. 

Then the warrior climbed the walls to Watchtower 4, with the help of a short blade and the agility of a mountain goat in a mad hurry to get home after work. Upon arriving on the top, it became clear that it was really Petra, in her read hair and green leather armor, also known by a series of nicknames which would require too long a prolonging of suspence of list (5).

FOOTNOTES:

(5) Her best remember and personal least favorite, however, had always been 1000 Needles after an unfortunate incident with a sexually experimentalist tattoo artist and an undead Cactoid.


	4. Wistful - part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ranger is introduced.

« Wherever there’s a beast most hideous, there you can find a ranger, stinking like an old kipper, » said Bergan. 

Petra stared a Bergan with pale blue eyes. Then she turned to Gabranth, but only very briefly and very coldly; even if the events following the taming of Tiamat were four years past, it his hard to hold a broken heart together when you’re looking at the hammer which shattered it, and she was rather disappointed in not noticing any sort of reaction after four years. 

« We must do something fast, » said Gabranth. 

« It’s no point wasting time with the smaller Bombs, » answered Petra, looking at him like a child looks at a very brutal plate of broccoli. « Take down the King and the rest will disperse ». 

« And where is this King, pray? » said Bergan, who was having a hard time figuring out how mindless explosive floating balloons could be familiar with the institution of monarchy. 

Petra, who had relinquished anthropocentrism the moment she had seen the cities of Landis burned almost to the ground by the Archadian army, simply pointed the finger towards South. Even Bergan had to admit that the Bomb floating there and getting nearer was impressive: it was at least thrice as large as the others and, the closer it came, the more they could notice the expression on its face, which seemed like one of pure vengeful fury. Everybody could see that the King was ready to blow up, and nobody dared touching it.


	5. Wistful - part 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Bombs are dealt with (somehow).

The rest, luckily for the imperial city, happened before you could say knife. 

The plan was devised by Petra and followed thoroughly, mostly because Gabranth supported it as an overall better solution than storing the Bombs inside the city’s municipal swimming pool.

Each and every explosive powered by water magick was rapidly distributed to the artillerymen, who then proceeded to fire them at the monsters. It was not enough, but the creatures seemed to become a bit groggy. 

The army was dispatched to activate all fire hydrants on the city streets*. Eventually, the oil patches started to be covered with water. Firefighting aircrafts, which had already been stationed in the skies of Archades awaiting for orders, were sent to spray water on the King. 

Petra had resumed her jumping and running over walls and rooftops and had reached the skyscraper closest to the monarch Bomb. She produced herself into a particularly impressive leap which brought her on the King’s back, assuming that a Bomb has a back to begin with. She resorted to her special rope, which she was very proud of, to cling to the creature’s jaw and steer it left or right, in order for it to be constantly exposed to the water jet. The King screamed and thrashed about, but Petra remained on its back. 

This lasted only for a few minutes, because the King seemed to decide pretty quickly that that wasn’t his lucky day. He ran for his life, with the firefighters in hot pursuit, and his subjects which hadn’t been defeated by the water bombs followed him despite being in such a great pain they had trouble levitating. 

Unfortunately Petra was violently hurled from the King’s back in the process. She managed somehow to cling to a horizontal flag pole using her rope as a lasso. A military aircraft tried to collect her, but she refused to set foot on anything that was flying and opted to break through a window glass on the 60th floor, finding her way back through the National Insurance Offices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * It is worth noticing at this point that no fire hydrant whatsoever was opened in the lower levels. Thankfully, though, water was dripping down from the upper levels like oil had done before. On this particular occasion, then, the laws of nature stood against the plutocracy.


	6. Wistful - part 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Judge Drace meets the girl she always loved.

Judge Magister Drace had a chocobo she was particularly fond of. His name was Betelgeuse and its feathers, although a little weathered, were of a tender shade of lilac. He had been ridden in battle many times, but had miraculously never been hurt. Now he was entering the chocobos’ twilight years, and she went to see him at the stables any time she could.  
Only, this time there was a Nightmare in the stables. Drace hadn’t been traveling much in the wild lands since she became a Judge, but she knew the appearance of a carnivore demon horse, with its mane and tail made of snakes and the formidable muscles of which it was equipped to be a better stalker of living, desperate prey. And she knew it mostly because she’d seen Petra riding it, the year before.  
She was giving the Nightmare a full grooming. She was brushing its fur with loving care, while addressing the demon horse with pet names most ill-suited for the situation. The fiend’s fur was rinsed with water and its fur had an impressively shining dark blue color. The armored plates of its skin were polished with a precision brush which was now laying orderly in a grooming pouch. Petra also polished the saddle in all its parts. Drace wondered whether the Nightmare wasn’t eating her only because it was waiting for her to fully perform her service.  
It was 704 of the Old Valendian, and Petra was 36, with Drace being five years younger. She had left for the wilderness when she was 23, and she had been a ranger ever since. She had since then lost two fingers of her left hand. She had some scars here and there, including a large one on her arm from Landis, but nothing new since they met the year before. The exact circumstances of her taming a Nightmare were unknown to Drace, but that wasn’t her first time seeing Fili; there had been a previous time, one neither of the two women thought suitable to recall.  
Petra’s red hair hadn’t changed over the years* and she was still tall and athletic. She had dark olive skin, like many other people from her country. She wasn’t wearing her ranger leather armor; rather, she had an unseemly combination of Bhujerban trousers, a grey shirt tense on her muscular back and yellow sandals. The last time Drace had worn sandals, she was 15. But Petra seemed so natural. She was a beautiful woman, Drace thought, although most people seemed to withdraw such opinion when they discovered she spent eleven months a year camping and hunting beasts, and the remaining month hunting for partners.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Which is certainly to be ascribed to her fondness of a particular conditioner, which was called the Wooly Gator and had a distinctive smell of coconut. No Gators are harmed in its production.


	7. Wistful - Part 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where somebody must definitely learn how to flirt.

Drace usually didn’t see much of Petra. She didn’t return to Archades often, and since four years before she’d returned even less; and even when she did, the two of them didn’t meet each time. Drace used to say she was sorry. Petra used to agree. Neither of them was eager to allow the other to read her.   
There was a lot of apologizing and a lot of crying last time they met, in an unfortunate series of incidents involving two sky pirates, weed, anti-Imperial seditions and a Molboro, and Petra had shackles around her wrists, back then. Nothing, apart maybe from the shackles, was ever what Drace would have want to experience when she met Petra.   
« Have you got some fancy man or woman, then? » asked Petra.   
« Perhaps I should remind you that I am Judge Magister, » said Drace very patiently. She was not going to allow that question to ruffle her feathers, even though she knew Petra was merely asking because she was hoping to be forgotten by Drace as soon as possible. She knew Petra wasn’t as hard as she wanted others to believe, and that she was sorry she couldn’t love her back.   
« So what if you’re a Judge? I don’t think they seal it up with a wax plug when they give you that ghastly armor of yours ».   
« A very exquisite phrasing as always. But I should like to know why are you so aggressively sarcastic tonight, Petra. Is this your way of being embarrassed? »   
Petra didn’t reply. Although not many people would have given her much credit for it, she knew when to shut up. She was angry. A little bit. And this time, she’d been in the wilderness for six months straight and she’d forgotten about humans — how they worked, how to speak to one’s friends.   
So, blushing a little bit, she proceeded to brush her horse’s pointed teeth with great care. The Nightmare was docile like it hadn’t been a demon spawned from the fiery bottomless pits of Hell.   
Drace was determined not to be impressed. With Petra, there was bound to be uneasiness. Recent years had been filled with way too many confessions and way too little gratification; in the end, it was unclear whether there was a situation in which everybody was in love with the wrong person, or simply with too many people. But they weren’t kids anymore, Drace thought.   
« Where did these Bombs come from? » she asked.   
« I’ve been tracking them up north, you know, from the Esterley mountain range. I would have arrived earlier, but I lost them a week ago. They came all the way from Antiwe, I believe ».  
Drace considered the names. They all belonged to places in which there was almost nothing, north from Landis. Maybe a few small towns. But otherwise it was all snow, blizzards and mountains and volcanos all the way up north in the Empire’s territories. She knew Petra more than the ranger wanted to admit. She could recognize a depressed state of hers when she saw it.   
« Burning everything they encountered, I assume ».  
« Not everything. Just people. If you want, I can tell you the whole story, » said Petra with a conciliatory tone, which masked the hope that Drace could then report in her stead to the authorities, since she much needed a beer and some fries and she didn’t fancy meeting the old farts of the committee.   
And she needed to talk to Drace. She couldn’t quite admit it, of course, since she was still a little mad about… well, she wasn’t really sure about what, but she was no fool, and she knew her Judges.


	8. Wistful - Part 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that Pineshear is actually Bormio, in Italy?

Petra yawned as she climbed on to Fili’s back. She had been bored that day, after more than a hundred and fifty days away from civilization in the monotonous taiga landscape. She knew the village of Pineshear was close. She had been there before several times, and was very impatient to visit it again because of the finest weizen home brew in the region and a particularly tasty style of tagliatelle with tons of cheese and potatoes. She was a little bit tired of camping in the snow and washing herself in iced ponds. For the occasion, she wore a crocheted woolen hat she had bought in Pineshear two years before, with two fancy tassels and a pom pom on top.   
She remembered the village very vividly. She always thought it looked like a snowball town, straight out of a Winter Wonderland’s market. It was perched on the rocky side of a mountain on which people skied and drank bombardinos. Summers there were green and flowery, but from October to April there was snow everywhere. Petra was expecting to see the Snowscape Hotel’s wooden roof and the front garden all covered in a white cape, which was always a sight to behold. She remembered the old ladies knitting on the benches outside the church; she also remembered the first time she brought Fili there, and she was playing in the snow, which she had never seen before, rolling in it and jumping on it and causing considerable trauma in the aforementioned old knitting ladies.   
Petra had dealt with a white wolf attack on Pineshear back in the days. It was a bloody business which produced considerable distress and three human corpses which were eventually reassembled at the morgue for identification. Petra had spent a whole day helping mr. Cyricus to skin the slain wolves, and had bonded a little bit with his nephew of 20, who was subsequently found having breakfast with her very late at the Snowscape with an unmistakable bedroom-eyes expression on his face.


	9. Wistful - Part 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t you just hate it when your favorite town burns to the ground?

She was definitely eager to see the pretty Pineshear again.   
One can easily imagine, then, how disappointed and utterly dismayed she was upon laying her eyes on the village, burned to a crisp.   
The rider froze on her horse and both stood in the snow, staring at the devastated town. Then Petra rode Fili down the late Main Street, very carefully, for a general inspection, with the heart suddenly turned to a very cold shard of ice(1).   
Nothing was left of the houses, the church, the Snowscape, but burned-up ruins. The roofs and the walls had caved in because of the fire, so there was nothing in town but piles of darkened rubble.   
The church tower had crumbled, and the bell had fallen to the ground generating a bit of a sinkhole. It laid there all blackened and dented like the sad product of a car crash. A front door had somehow survived and it stood alone in the devastation, with a festive garland hanging eerily from the door knocker, saying “Welcome to the world, Sira!”.   
The snow had melted into water and created deep muddy pools on which the ashes floated, from buildings and villages alike. Petra saw the carbonized remains of a shepherd dog and her heart sank to her feet. She was a woman who never cried(2), but she felt her legs become weaker and her hands starting to shake.  
« Ma’am ranger! Please! » called somebody.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Actually, Fili was a demon, and she couldn’t help but appreciating the burned-up corpses on the side of the roads; she even tasted a piece of the butcher’s wife, but, being a good demon after all, she crunched the carbonized arm very slowly and quietly in order not to offend anybody.  
> (2) Which is why she was called The Onion Knight by some of her acquaintances.


	10. Wistful - Part 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did you know a host of Bombs is called a nuke?

A few surviving villagers were coming closer. Some of them were wounded, some of them were crying very messily; the rest looked like they still had no idea as to whatever had happened, and they even smiled, creepily, like those unaware dead dolls peeking out from the ashen ruins of some ravaged children bedroom.   
« What caused this fire? »  
« We were attacked by a pack of Bombs(1)! Some of us were able to leg it to our refuge up on the mountains, but most… they didn’t— »  
« It must have happened in the morning, right? » guessed Petra.  
« Yes. Up until now we have waited for those abominations to leave ».  
« Please, kill them! »  
« You must kill them all! »  
Petra quickly found herself in the middle of a little crowd of unfortunate widows and orphans calling out for vengeance. As an Archadian soldier, she had learned long ago how to keep a straight face while being assaulted by beseechers of swift and painful death sentences.   
The village had been cut off from communications, but some suggested to travel to the neighboring town in the valley, to alert Archades and await for their dreaded aircrafts. Petra could hardly share their enthusiasm, partly because she hated nothing in the world more than she hated airships(2)… and partly because she knew that Archadian troops would have been ordered to bomb the whole mountain range with everybody in it, since they were quite renowned for their targeting approximations. Plus, Petra knew that Bombs could indeed be killed via explosive crafts or chemical warfare, but she also knew that this would cause them to blow up, which would probably destroy an entire ecosystem depending on how large the nuke was.   
« I will go look for the Bombs, » said Petra. She gave the villagers some basic instruction on how to face the crisis, then she stared at them with an icy glare. « Whatever you do, do not start any hunting party or any other stupid thing ».   
The townspeople stared back at her with the exact expression of angry avengers hellbent on starting the largest and stupidest hunting party ever seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Actually, a group of Bombs is called a nuke, not a pack. We can however excuse the poor man for not paying attention to such trifle, since he had been the owner of the shepherd dog Petra saw earlier, and had now no one else in the world to turn to.  
> (2) This is not entirely true. The other thing Petra hated with a passion was children. She despised the way children were unable to swing a blade in a satisfactory manner, and was never fascinated by the wonderful mind of a child; in fact, she considered it to be more similar to that of a jellyfish than to anything wonderful.


	11. Wistful - part 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even Bombs’ bellies can ache!

It is especially hard to follow a Bomb’s trail, because a Bomb hardly leaves any trail at all. They float above the ground and never use their fiery magicks on animals or plants. They don’t need to eat any beast, so they don’t hunt. Since they only attack humans, Petra was afraid that the most effective way to track them down was to wait for another village to burn up.  
  
She was lucky, though. It appeared that one Bomb wasn’t feeling very well(1). She realized that when she saw a substance similar to molten rock sprayed here and there on the snow and on tree trunks.  
  
« We’re following the poo trail, Fili, » Petra announced to her demon horse. Fili looked at the trail very wisely and didn’t make any comment.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The fact that Bombs don’t eat living prey has led many scientists to conclude that they don’t have a digestive apparatus. But Bombs do eat: they eat sulphur fumes, and actually any other fume which is stinky, toxic and repulsive… apart from exhaust fumes from human machinery; they would like it, actually, but they are against it out of a precise ethical stance.


	12. Wistful - Part 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Petra finds out how hard it is to protect wildlife from angry villagers with pitchforks.

Petra _did_ find the Bomb nuke in the end, but it wasn’t easy.

She realized only after a day of riding on the mountain crossing that the Bombs had tricked her, and sent a lonely belly-aching individual to side-track her. The ranger then went back, gloomily riding in silence as the mischievous decoy Bomb followed her for hours, laughing the daylights out of itself(*).

Naturally, the nuke stroke back. Another mountain town was burned, and this time Petra wasn’t let down by her tracking skills and arrived in time to see the arsonists… but then she spotted another black smoke column in the sky, many miles across the valley, on top of another small cliff. It was clear that the nuke had split, and there was no telling in just how many parties.

« I underestimated them, » said Petra. « I never met Bombs so clever ».

This time, with her help, everybody was saved from the fire; they were a little crispy here and there, but they were alive. The townspeople had formed a circle around the ranger and the schoolmaster, who was very highly regarded in town because of his sound moral background.

« The herd has split. Obviously you can’t do this on your own. We need to act fast, » said the schoolmaster, waving his index finger like most teachers do when they’re speaking to an ignorant child.

« We should parley with them, not go at them in full force. If we can just track their leader down… »

« _Parley_! Those freak show clowns don’t know what a leader is! They just follow their guts to whichever depravity they feel like! Next you’ll be asking us to discuss ethics with rapists and pedophiles! No, miss Ranger, the flock is on the move, and we must act fast. We lost three villages already and almost 60 people are dead, » thundered the schoolmaster, prompting a choir of “hear, hear!”.

« I’m not protecting the Bombs, mr. High Horse, I’m protecting what’s left of you. I’ve seen the creatures. They are packed with Mist. If you so much as poke them with a toothpick, they’re gonna blow in your face ».

This argument seemed to stall the schoolmaster’s sanctimonious fury for a few seconds. Evidently, even if he was ready to fight for the preservation of the human species and its healthy humanistic values, he wasn’t quite ready to die in a blast.

Petra decides to go for it again. « These Bombs are angry for some reason. We need to underst— »

« What’s there to understand! Mindless creatures, forsaken even by devils, cast out of the gods’ gracious design! They have to die! I will not suffer their presence on these mountains any longer! »

The crowd recognized it as the end of the argument, and started turning their backs on Petra after giving her cold looks full of disdain. The schoolmaster was shepherding his flock away from her with wide, confident gestures, but first he turned to her for one final blow.

« It’s no surprise rangers are going extinct. Warriors without a spine don’t last long ».

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (*) The Bomb ended up laughing so much that it bursted. Petra and Fili weren’t badly hurt by the explosion, since they noticed in time what was about to happen, but the woman was feeling particularly irritated to have been to object of ridicule of a sassy Bomb to such an extreme point.


	13. Wistful - Part 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which angry villagers with pitchforks meet avalanches

The biggest city in the area sat at the exact centre of a great valley; it was inhabited by no more than ten thousand people and hadn’t been touched by the fiery attacks. Yet. The citizen, however, seemed to think that their very souls were in jeopardy, because nobody around there ever dealt with such a huge number of non-human creatures. Therefore, a small contingent was armed. Nobody really considered that Archades had already taken all the men and women who were fit to be soldiers, leaving to the anti-Bomb platoon only a few policemen, and then the too old, the too young, the physically impaired and the completely and utterly dense.  
  
Petra knew now that the Bombs were not at all mindless, and noticed that, this time, the creatures had left a trail of burned-up trees, so clear that a blind man lost in the forests could have followed them with no difficulty.  
  
To make things worse, the platoon decided to leave at dusk. Perhaps they feared an attack during the night, perhaps they were going for a witch-hunting dark vibe with pitchforks, torches and all — but it was clear to Petra, and to her alone, that somebody was indeed going to burn, but it wouldn’t be the Bombs.  
  
The platoon marched as steadily as it could, which was already a lot, considering the 10 year olds sinking in the tall snow and the elderly veterans advancing with the speed of a moving glacier. The only ones who were going very fast were the dense: their brain resembled that of a cockroach, and was too busy processing the anti-Bomb rage in the name of humanity and common decency to deal with fear or cold.  
  
However, when they heard the unmistakable rumble of an avalanche building up above them on the top of the mountain, they started to seriously freak out. Some of them ran for it, fast as lightning, other climbed the trees, others fell to the ground shaking in fear.  
  
As some readers might have guessed, the avalanche was caused by Petra with a well-executed Mist-imbued spear strike. She was no mage, but had some notion of earth magick, which was the only element she always found easier to understand. She paid very close attention not to cause the avalanche too close to them, where the soldiers could have really died, but she succeeded in blocking the path that could have led them to the Bombs.


	14. Wistful - Part 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Petra meets an harem of outcasts

« Ah-hem ».  
  
The Bombs didn’t seem to notice Petra at all.  
  
Apparently they were celebrating a very jolly occasion, tossing and jumping and rolling around, singing and dancing together on what seemed to be a very catchy diva anthem from the two decades before. They paid no attention to Petra. This was, after all, a good thing.  
  
The snow was melting everywhere and water was dripping from the trees, but the Bombs seemed not to mind: actually, they appeared to be playing with water, much like humans play with fire on certain particularly intoxicated afterparties.  
  
The ranger carefully inspected the party zone. The Bombs were, indeed, so full of Mist that they could have exploded only by accidentally bumping on one another(1).  
  
Petra could not help but wonder what kind of social group the Bombs had created, and she started investigating. After quite a lot of kneeling down, she concluded that all the Bombs she had inspected were male(2).  
  
She was trying to decide whether there were any female Bombs among the nuke, when a very big individual bounced on the ground a couple of times right in front of her, making her jump out of her own skin. Thankfully, nobody exploded; it was, however, very hot.  
  
The bouncing Bomb was then in front of her, and Petra was astounded by its size. That must have be the leader; actually, it was wearing what seemed to be a crown of dry sticks and branches, suggesting it was, rather, royalty.  
  
The monarch was levitating in front of her, and she couldn’t help but kneel down another time. The Bomb was very pleased with this display of respect, but Petra had actually kneeled to check his lower parts. A male. She had never seen a harem of homosexual male Bombs before.  
  
« Your Majesty, » she said.  
  
The King gestured her to raise up, then came so near to her that she felt her skin burning. He was staring at her in the eyes.  
  
« I understand you’re very angry about something. I wonder if we humans could do anything to help you ».  
  
The King started bouncing like it had gone crazy. There was no telling whether he was angry or just trying to say something. Sadly, there seemed to be a communication breakdown between Petra and the Bomb LGBT community. She had the horrible feeling that an open battle was going to be to only solution to that crisis. And all because she didn’t speak Bomb. She had some experience in taming and befriending all sorts of creatures, but these ones were different: the were built to pursue their target until the bitter end.  
  
« Please, your Majesty. Nobody has to die anymore, not us, not you guys. Perhaps we can all find a way to share the land, live together with no killing and— »

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) The problem was that the Bomb-dance was getting positively sexy, making bumping (or humping) a very likely occurrence.
> 
> (2) As everybody knows, Bombs aren’t born, but they were created long ago as weapons of war; some of them were used, other destroyed, the rest ran away and became feral. It is then a mystery why they should bother having any genitalia. Vitalist philosophers are disgusted by this waste of sexual drive and claim that the Bombs’ original creator must have been a huge jerk, while modern social theorists claim it very backwards to accept the existence of genitalia for the sole purpose of reproduction. For this reason, Bombs are regarded as a banner for sexual liberation by a small group of thinkers, which is, of course, not creepy at all.


	15. Wistful - Part 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Bomb king is not at all convinced.

The King hit Petra so hard in the stomach with his short arm that she was flung to a very sturdy oak tree and went blind for a few seconds. She couldn’t see, but she could hear the nuke becoming wild and starting to scream even louder than before, as they flew off to battle. 

As soon as she recovered her sight, she faced the Bombs and started using the spear as a tennis racket, without piercing them, to push them onto one another to make them blow up… but there were too many. 

Over the next forty minutes, many unpleasant things happened. 

The makeshift soldiers still left in the mountain were burned alive with no exceptions. 

Other Bombs rushed to the city whence the platoon came, with Petra on their tail. There were no soldiers left, apart from a sleepy traffic warden, so the ranger fought alone for what seemed to be an entire century, to keep the Bombs away from the city, destroying as many creatures as she could. 

She knew full well that those Bombs were being sacrificed by the King so that the main group could go somewhere else without being followed, but there was nothing to be done about it. Soon, everything was engulfed in flames due to the Bombs exploding. 

Petra had been in many fires, more than she should have liked, and every time, like when she was 3, the one thing which was the most striking were the screams: people who are being burned alive scream in a way which cannot be heard in any other occasion.


	16. Wistful - Part 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a Ranger hits on a Judge

« What happened next? » asked Drace. 

« I rode across the mountains following those shit balls, until I came here, » answered Petra. « You ever chased something for two weeks on horseback in the snow? It’s lots of fun. After all that galloping your ass looks like a pancake, but with blisters ». 

Drace fought with all the strength she could muster against the thought of a pancake with blisters. 

« Can’t Fili teleport? » she asked. 

« Only a few times a day and only if she knows where she’s going. But we didn’t, cause those damn balloons kept on changing route, » Petra replied. She patted Fili’s neck and scratched her a little bit behind the ear. The Nightmare’s expression became a disconcerting mix of friendliness and evilness. « So you did ask me about Fili, at last. I was feeling so stupid with you being so cool about her being here, » smiled the ranger. She noticed the expression with which Drace was looking at the whole scene. 

Drace ended up smiling herself. She was obviously feeling uneasy about the presence of a demon in the imperial stables, but she always liked watching Petra taking care of her beasts. And she always thought it was kind of cute, the way Petra made an effort to talk like a pirate to her.

« Are you going to stay long? » asked the Judge. 

« Well, no, I don’t think so. I hate the food here. There are some men who have missed me, though ».

Drace’s muscles stiffened for a very long moment, as she did her best to interpret that phrase as “some men I trained with in my youth have missed me in the most platonic and friendly way”. 

She didn’t know why exactly she cared. But she did, a little bit. 

« I’m sorry, Drace. I’m just tired, and I say idiotic things. I’m getting way too old for this job, » said Petra, smiling more gently. « Perhaps we could hang out tonight, no? You and me, as friends. Just some beers, no dancing ». She then seemed to be having the time of her life, watching Drace struggle against it with all her might, but ending up blushing anyway. 

« That would be rather frivolous, wouldn’t it? »

« What damage does it make, once in a while? »

It seemed like an innocent question. Yet it made a deep chasm spread out between the two women. Drace felt disturbed by it.

« You must know we are at war, » said Drace very earnestly. 

« I do. But I’m not. I’m never at war against anyone ». 

Petra petted her demon horse a little bit more, before collecting all her things and heading past Drace towards the stables’ gate. 

The two women exchanged a good, long look which could have meant anything, and which was clearly hinting at the question which had lingered between them the whole time without ever being expressed. 

« I do feel sorry for the Bombs. I know it’s probably nothing to you, but I want you to know it. If you think about it, we humans have created them and sent them to die. It’s always us, creating a situation from which the only way out is more violence, » said Drace very slowly.

Indeed Petra knew when to shut up, and that was good note on which to end the conversation. She lightly touched Drace’s arm, making her heart jump a little bit, and was about to leave.

« A drink is fine, » said Drace abruptly, her voice a bit hoarse, stopping Petra in her steps. « As friends ».


End file.
